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Make Room in the Kitchen
For a New Coffee Roaster

By DANIEL NASAW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


When he hears people call Starbucks gourmet coffee, Richard Musk scoffs. Since he got a home coffee roaster this spring, Mr. Musk has been starting out each morning with a freshly brewed cup of Sumatra Mandheling, grade 1. "You just get a much stronger sense of the coffee," says the Newtown, Conn., musician, who used to favor Starbucks' Verona blend.

Make room on the kitchen counter. For foodies intent on having the latest gadget, there's a new smell in the air: roasting coffee. During the past two years, sales of home roasters, from the $62 Hearthware Gourmet to a $280 machine called the Alpenrost, have as much as doubled, makers say. Retailers like Sweetmarias.com, a specialty-coffee Web site, say demand for the machines has increased 50% annually since they were introduced during the late '90s (before that, most home-roast devotees jury-rigged popcorn poppers to do the job).

The machines work either by blowing hot air over the beans, or in the case of the Alpenrost, by using toaster-like heating coils while the beans rotate in a drum. Just pour the green beans in, wait a few minutes, then let the beans rest for about 12 hours before grinding. Aficionados like New Yorker Steve Bookman point out that coffee from green beans isn't just cheaper (fresh beans go for about $5 a pound, about half of what most high-end coffees cost) but tastes fresher. (Experts say beans start losing their flavor about a week after they're roasted.)

Home roasters also can take their pick of esoteric coffees, from Tanzanian Peaberry to Costa Rican Dota Tarrazu -- or even devise special blends for their morning cup of joe. Buying commercially roasted coffee is "like being given a restaurant wine list with only one red and one white," says Mr. Bookman, who started roasting his own after reading about it on alt.coffee, an Internet newsgroup.

And, of course, there's a whole lingo to go along with the cult, with home-roast converts talking about their beans' "brightness," "movement" and "finish."

Still, even fans say the process isn't always easy. "It's not like making toast," says Sweet Maria's founder Maria Troy (which may help explain why even makers say these are a niche product.) Plus, the machines can be noisy -- "like a loud vacuum cleaner in the kitchen," says Mr. Bookman.

Then there's the smell factor: Far from filling the air with the scent of fresh coffee, the roasting beans give off a smell like burning rubber, say roasters. Andrew Clayman found that out when he fired up his machine for the first time. A few minutes into the process, he smelled something burning, then came downstairs to find the house filled with foul-smelling smoke. Now he does his roasting outside -- to the neighbors' dismay. "I can't say that people are attracted to my backyard when I'm roasting," he says. Still, "no one has a problem drinking the coffee."

Write to Daniel Nasaw at daniel.nasaw@wsj.com

Updated October 18, 2002


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